Jordan’s World Cup dream lives on

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Jordan’s win over Uzbekistan has earned them a play-off to gain entry into the world cup, to be held in Brazil in 2014.

The play of will be against the fifth ranked team from South America, and will take place on 13/14 November 2013 in Jordan and the following week a return leg in South America.

This surely in its entirety is a David versus Goliath affair.

But such games are a fantasy for the neutrals like me, waiting for a fairy tale.

I guess the question is who will be Jordan’s opponents?

Let us quickly look at the suspects.

A run through the South American qualifiers see, that Ecuador and Uruguay are both on 22 points (fourth place).

Venezuela is in sixth position, having played one more game and on 19 points.

They have one game to play against Paraguay at home.

You would assume that they might nick in the three points here and go on to 22 points.

However their chances look slim.

Both Ecuador and Uruguay play in the upcoming round and this should help in clearing the cloud on who could possibly occupy fourth and fifth spot.

The final round of games see Ecuador take on Chile away in Chile which will be a difficult game for Ecuador.

Uruguay will take on Argentina at home and seeing Argentina have qualified, how much will Argentina take into the match only time will tell.

So with the fixtures analysed it can only be concluded that the Ecuador versus Uruguay game will play the biggest part in who takes the fourth Spot and who goes for the qualifier play offs.

When I see Jordan’s playoff instantly the New Zealand versus Bahrain game came to mind, and how on that soggy day in Wellington, the All Whites beat Bahrain to qualify for the World Cup 2010.

However, in Jordan’s case it could possibly be Ecuador versus Uruguay and that would be a daunting task for any team in the world.

Jordan’s away record has not been very good. They have accrued four away losses to Australia, Iraq, Oman and Japan but their home record has been impressive.

Their biggest victims include, Japan who lost 2-1 and same goes for Australia.

And it’s ironic those these two teams Japan and Australia were defeated by Brazil recently and by some margin if you really wanted to gauge any Asian teams playing a top dog from South America, but you also have to argue that both Ecuador versus Uruguay are not on the same page as Brazil so Jordan can take some solace from that.

Jordan have never played Uruguay, while Jordan beat Ecuador in Tripoli 3-0 in a friendly in 2004. However, that is nearly a decade ago.

For Jordan the home game should set the platform for the away leg, which either it be Ecuador versus Uruguay will be massive. Based on past games, it’s always going to be difficult to play in South America.

The home game for Jordan will be key. A win or draw even will give them a chance to go to South America and get an away goal even draw and get to penalties.

However if they are overrun at home then it would be very difficult.

There is no hiding the fact that Uruguay and Ecuador are way ahead in experience having played in the FIFA World Cup. They have players playing in Europe and South America’s Copa Libertadores, while Jordan’s current squad ply their trade in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Either way, Jordan must be ready for an almighty battle, a battle that will stay in the minds of supporters for a long time.

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8 pots, but one has Brazil and therefore can’t have another South American team in it, which increases the chances of any unseeded non-South American team being in that pot as opposed to other pots…….. and I can’t be bothered doing the maths as I have a day job.

My attempt of calculation
This is the assumption that Asian teams are put in the same pot as south america. It’s quite possible we will could be place in Pot 4 and swapped with the african/concacaf/ofc nations as well. If we are in pot 4 it would simply be 1/8 to be in the Brazil group and 1/24 to be playing the opening game
Pot 1: Seeds
Pot 2: Non-seeded European Team
Pot 3: Asia/South America
Pot 4: Africa/CONCACAF/OFC

So Brazil and Argentina will be the two seeded non South American teams. Therefore the South american sides must all be placed with the European seeded teams. So the four south american sides will be put wiht european sides and two asians team will be put with european sides and two will be placed with south american teams.
So there is a 50% chance of been place with Brazil or Argentina
25% chance of being place with Brazil
1/12 chance (1/4 x 1/3 as we have a chance of playing brazil first, second or third) of playing the opening game of the tournament. So that is about 8.3% from my calculation

Of course that’s assuming that CONMEBOL and AFC are paired together in the draw.

I watched both of the Jordan – Uzbekistan matches. In both games Jordan played very defensively and a negative game whilst Uzbekistan took it to them and dominated. Unfortunately without Genryikh they seemed unable to find the back of the net.

Jordan will need to take a more positive approach if they are to have a chance. They can’t rely on the opposition not having their shooting boots on.

I hope Jordan get beaten comprehensively in the playoff, firstly because I would much prefer some more South American flavour at the World Cup than a bunch of diving wimps to be blunt. But, most importantly, it might prove to us (and hopefully some Socceroos, Holman and Brosque, for example) that the gulf between desert football and high class football is so large that you cannot hope to compete internationally by playing in the domestic leagues of these Middle Eastern nations.

I will generally be supporting the asian teams at the World Cup, and I’d like to support Jordan as the underdog, but I just can’t get on board. The amount of diving and rolling around faking injury they always get up to makes them one of my most disliked regular opponents, and hence one of the teams I most like to see beaten by Australia when we play them. Of course I’m not particularly fond of any of their likely south american opponents either.

Saudi would be a top league however they (and the Gulf States) place their burgeoning talent in golden handcuffs and don’t let them test themselves in Europe which stagnates their development. This in turn makes the league a tad complacent.

Kids like Fahad Al-Muwallad should be encouraged to got to Europe and test themselves, not remain in Saudi cotten wooled in comfort by a club like Al-Ittihad. Ahmed Khalil in Al-Alhi in UAE is another example. These kids should be playing for teams like Feynoord, wolfsburg or Lyon, not in their home clubs where they’ll stay for the rest of their careers.

The Saudi league needs to be place where football can grow, not a dead end. Certainly the money, clubs and supporters are there to make it so. They just need to be able to let kids go so they can grow and do Saudi proud on the international stage.